Fried La La Clams in lemongrass chilli paste

Have you ever wondered why these clams are called La-la?  They also have a host of other shelled relatives called Chut-chut and Gong-gong. I wonder if they're known by these names overseas?  Perhaps it's just a Singapore nomenclature for such bivalves.

Even though I don't fancy seafood, I like to cook them for my hubby.  He's my greatest food fan!  But he can't take very spicy food, so I've made a chilli paste from scratch that isn't that spicy but very rich in flavour to cook with the La-la clams.

You will need a mortar and pestle for this, so roll up your sleeves and get ready to "tumbuk" the ingredients.  This is one of the best ways to get all the flavours from the raw ingredients to mix together.  My darling Angie was watching on as I was pounding the chilli paste.  I like to work on the mortar and pestle on the kitchen floor.  I put a towel under it so that it wouldn't be so noisy.

Ingredients

• 1 kg La-la clams
• 1/2 to 1 cup of ketchup
• 7 large chillies
• 2 medium-size onions
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 2 stalks of lemongrass
• 2 cm size ginger
• salt to taste

Method

1. Slice and dice the chillies, onions, garlic, lemongrass and ginger.  You can grind it further by adding the ingredients into a food chopper.
2. Use a mortar and pestle to grind the chopped ingredients into a paste.
3. Heat up a frying pan and add a dash of oil. Then fry the paste for about 5 minutes or until you can smell the aroma of the paste. 
4. Add salt to taste.
5. Add ketchup.  Add more if you want it less spicy.
6. Add the clams.  Fry until all the clams are opened.
   
7. Serve while hot.

Yummy!

For those like me who don't quite fancy clams, you can always fry the lemongrass chilli paste with veggies alone, such as ladies fingers, tomatoes and brinjal or aubergine.

And the best part of this chill paste is that you can pound it and save it in the freezer and use it whenever you need it!

Have a try and me let know what you think.